


Mother May I (Or in which Aang adapts)

by LadyRWidow



Series: Windwalker AU [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Airbending & Airbenders, Airbending Philosophy, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Stockholm Syndrome, Unhealthy Relationships, Windwalker AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:40:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24867742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRWidow/pseuds/LadyRWidow
Summary: Aang learns about Windwalker airbending philosophy and hits his first mental block.(And starts noticing that things aren't quite right, but is having trouble processing)
Relationships: Aang & Original Characters
Series: Windwalker AU [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1748830
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	Mother May I (Or in which Aang adapts)

**Author's Note:**

> Aang is having a hard time in this chapter (when isn't he in this story tbh), but it leans more towards frustration and anger. He's processing. Yes, he's still on happy juice but on a lower dosage. 
> 
> Aang is about 6 months into his stay with the Windwalkers. He's been training with them for about a month and has hit a roadblock. Still 10 years old, almost 11.

“Again.” 

Hands in front of him in a neutral pose, he breathed in and looked at the chipped monstrosity in front of him. It was a boulder that had been subjected to hours of practice and had dents from failed attempts and, more recently, small areas sliced off from more successful attempts. 

Sweat dripping down his forehead, he painstakingly pushed aside the strain of his muscles and the surrounding sounds. Everything from touch to smell had become increasingly grating the more time he spent on the _stupid_ technique.

He had to get it this time!

He brought his hands up… and then down in a slicing motion with a near silent exhalation. 

“Again.” 

Aang couldn’t help but twitch and glare at the clean dent that he’d been able to make in the rock. A notch. Hours of repetition and all he got was a _notch._

The sky was turning a deep red, the sun setting and reminding Aang that they had been at this since early morning. They were stuck somewhere in the plains about a days walk away from Gao Ling which was their next destination. In the meantime, A’ma used the cover of the endless plains as an excuse to burn through what energy he had. 

“Again.” 

They had taken away his staff at the very beginning. He hadn't seen it in _months_. Apparently, during training it was considered a crutch. 

And he was actually doing it… sort of… ok not really, but he was getting better! The precision that hacking into anything took was… a lot, really, which was why most airbenders used a weapon like a fan or a staff (or a sword) for it. 

“ _Again._ ” 

But he had been practicing this move for days and _still wasn’t getting it right!_

Aang screamed out in frustration, face twisting in a snarl as he broke form for the first time in hours. Punching forward, the rock was hurdled off into the distance and down a small hill. Once the damn thing was out of sight, he let out a ragged breath and bent low at the waist.

His ears felt and sounded like they were stuffed with cotton, muffling the outside voices and sounds that had been so constant. And, with that, he finally allowed himself to _feel_. 

His breathing was shuddering, raspy even, and his arms were shaking. The airbender didn’t know when he had been pushed past his breaking point. Aang dug his nails into his knees in an attempt to stay upright. Predictably, that failed and he fell face forward into the grass. 

_Just let me die here, please_

A faint chuckling brought him halfway back to the land of the living. The boy turned his head in time to see orange-red fabric gliding towards him. Aang couldn’t bring himself to shoot up to attention from where he was gripping the grass. A hand lightly rested on his bare back and he cringed at where it touched the still sore flesh of his new tattoo. 

_Warmth.understanding. lo//ve. disappointment.affection. looo//v e// .displeasure…_

He suppressed a whimper, shrinking slightly under the sudden weight. The emotions from everyone, especially A’ma, were still so new and bowled him over like a poorly rooted tree being hit by a strong breeze. The negative emotions hit him especially hard and had him shedding tears more often than not whenever he did something they considered… _lacking_. 

He was suddenly so exhausted and the previous disappointment and frustration in himself began to build higher and higher. What was he doing wrong? Why wasn’t it working? All the other acolytes were miles ahead of him in training, so why was he lagging behind? 

_He had always been one of the best students among his group, so why was he suddenly on the bottom?_

His chest heaved for a few breaths and he shakily looked up at A’ma, pleading and teary eyed. 

“What am I doing wrong?” 

Her expression was unnervingly blank for a moment before it morphed into something entirely sympathetic, as if taking off a theatre mask ( _or putting one on)_ . An overwhelming feel of _calm_ swept over him. His eyelids drooped and he was taken back to the early months of the constant cups of tea every morning and evening.

Distantly, Aang could hear the sounds of scraping and motion in the distance grow louder. He realized that it had gone silent for a moment. The shaking in his hands subsided slowly and he breathed out as he tried to bask in the calm that A’ma was radiating. 

“Your motions and footwork are near perfect and, overall, you have the form as learned as you can physically manage but, somehow, you haven’t been so accepting of the mentality behind our way of bending,” she enunciated lightly. A strong breeze forced him up off the ground. 

Aang let out a loud yelp before stabilizing and airbending himself so that he was back on his shaky feet. He hadn’t expected her to be so close in front of him and took an unsteady step back. 

“What do you mean? You said it was practically perfect!” He spread out his arms in exasperation. 

“I said it was _nearly_ perfect.” Reaching over, she plucked a grass blade clinging to his shoulder. “You have been trained with the mentality that upon meeting resistance, you must change direction and choose the path of least resistance.” 

Aang furrowed his eyebrows. “But… airbending _is_ about that! And flexibility and flowing with the current and - “ using his fingers to emphasize his points had the A’ma huff in amusement and raising a hand to stop his tangent. 

“Airbending is about all of those things. But the air nomads of the temples interpret that in a way that suits them just as we interpret the teachings of the lion turtles and the bison in our _own_ way.” Her words were gentle, and her surroundings were… faded to match. 

_She was always so bright in comparison to their surroundings and Aang wondered if that was a sign of some sort._

Aang was thoroughly confused. How could the teachings be interpreted in another way? Nevertheless, he recognized the beginning of a lecture. 

“There is air in everything and the nomads believe in the passivity of wind and air and negative _jing_. Avoiding and evading. We, on the other hand, separate wind and air and choose to learn by the wind.” Putting out a hand, she conjured a uniform tornado in her hand, textbook perfect in her hand. 

“Wind twists and turns in seemingly meaningless directions, following the path of least resistance as the monks would say.” The disdain in her voice was palpable but the small tornado remained stable. “Wind blows because it has the _freedom_ to do so. It won’t hesitate to turn destructive without warning. Wind is… be*****.”The tornado wobbled violently back and forth. 

Aang tilted his head as he tried to parse out the last word, sounding out the syllables and not being able to come up with a suitable alternative in another dialect. He couldn’t help but interrupt

“What does bei**** mean?” His tongue rolled awkwardly on the word. The closest he could translate it to was probably the fire dialect’s word for ‘envy’. 

She said nothing for a moment, a pensive tilt to her lips, before deciding: “The word, in our language, does not have a similar meaning in the air dialect, but is more associated with water. The meaning is best described as when something, or someone, acts out in a way that is true to their nature.”

“So… someone's _disposition_?” He offered in the air dialect. Sangmu smirked a bit before shaking her head.

“No. That is too simple for the concept. You will come to understand what it means in time. I suspect understanding will come when it is time for you to learn waterbending.”

Aang’s eyes widened in shock. This was the first time since he became one of them that they had mentioned anything about his… status. Aang didn’t know how to feel about that and thought best not to comment on it, choosing to draw his focus back to the sound of the small tornado in A’mas’ grasp.

She leaned back and Aang could vaguely feel the… shift in her line of thinking (it was a bit like recognizing when a bird was about to change course - it took time and learning to get used to reading his side of the bond).

“Certain parts of the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom are devastated by hurricanes and twisters seasonally and they do an almost unimaginable amount of damage, to both the people and everything that crosses their path.” The small hurricane quickly spun out of control and dissipated in Sangmu’s hand. “Do you think it feels guilt?” 

Aang looked up from her empty hand, confusion visible in his features. “Does… the wind… feel guilt,” he repeated slowly. 

“The wind,” Sangmu replied simply, an inch away from impassive though Aang wasn’t able to put a finger on the emotion in her voice. 

He reached up to scratch the back of his neck as he thought about it. “Well, spirits feel things like anger and happiness, so I would say they feel guilt too.” 

Sangmu shook her head. Near silent static filled Aang’s head for a moment before fading just as quickly. “Child, no, I’m talking about the _wind_ not the spirits. There are spirits that are made of wind or have some control over it, but wind in itself is no single spirit. Think about my question carefully.”

Aang watched A’ma carefully as she stepped a few paces away from him, noticing how those silver eyes softened in an attempt to seem less intimidating while the subtle frown turned into something more neutral. It made the acolyte reasonably nervous when they hardened back into sharpened steel the moment her eyes left his. 

“I think - ” Aang started carefully, very carefully “ - that they would feel guilt if they knew us.” 

Sangmu tilted her head, humming in contemplation before responding. “Does the wind not know us? Does it not know our lungs with each breath that we take and every step in the open? What knows us better than our mother element in her purest form? Who knows humanity better?” 

Looking down, Aang examined the bruised knobs of his knees, absently picking at the dirt underneath his fingernails. That kind of thinking sounded…dangerous. 

“You make it sound like air… or wind, I guess, feels...nothing?” He said it like a question, still unsure of the subject. The wind had always been the wind for him outside of spirits. It had never been a topic of debate. Air nomad philosophy had always been very… human centric now that he thought about it.

A sense of genuine pleasure and warmth washed over him, almost soothing the aches in his muscle. If Aang didn’t know better, he could have sworn A’ma was glowing a healthy blue. Unconsciously, a smile curled his lips and he stepped closer to her, as if attempting to bask in a small sun beam.

“Exactly. Air and wind feel no pain or anger, or happiness for that matter. Their nature dictates their actions and there is no shame in it. They are kind as they are cruel, harsh as they are gentle. They offer no forgiveness or salvation. They exist as a she, a he, an it - and we are an extension of their reach on this world.” 

Aang had never thought too deeply on his element and it’s - their - nature in a... harsh way. The monks had always focused on the flexibility of air and how it interacted with nature and benders alike, specifically in a peaceful context.

“You have another question.” It was a statement and A’ma looked down at him expectantly. 

“So… you - I mean _we_ \- follow the detachment principle?” Aang paused before hurrying to clarify. “I mean, you know how the air nomads say detachment from the earth and material things is the path to true freedom and enlightenment?” 

The smile that had lit up A’mas’ presence quickly faded as she shook her head. “Detachment is the last thing that we, as windwalkers, teach. As a principle, it is flawed and, even among our brother’s culture, not fully supported. In the air temples, you lived among a community that cared for each other.” Aang followed A’mas’ gaze as she turned towards the camp. Fondness was written in the few wrinkles she possessed, though her eyes were no less severe. “We are much the same, taking care of and loving one another. Our families and social ties are far more… closer-knit than the monks, but it’s much the same principle.” 

Those words and the sight of the camp with all of it’s inhabitants working together and communicating and _laughing_ hit something sore and festering in him. His stomach twisted in an unfamiliar way. It twisted and reached into his chest, gripping tightly as he tried to breathe _in and out_. He dug his nails into his palms and tried to swallow past the lump in his throat.

“You disagree?” A’ma didn’t… seem particularly offended, but Aang had long learned that neutrality did not mean he had not done something wrong. 

“If they cared they wouldn’t have given me away,” he spit out with a surprising amount of venom. Aang pressed his lips tightly in dismay, physically turning until he was facing away from both her and the camp.

Aang heard nothing from her for a moment before he heard the shuffling of cloth. A hand gently came around his shoulder and guided him into a sort of half hug that would have been awkward in another situation. 

“They used to tell us stories about you,” he admitted when some time had passed and she had not replied. “They used to say that you would take us in our sleep and turn us into monsters. I used to have nightmares of waking up with a dozen extra eyes and legs, not being able to say anything or scream.” 

Aang paused to simply look up at the sunset with it’s swirls of purple and red and for a moment felt so achingly homesick that he thought he felt physical pain. “But you’re nothing like that. I mean, there was the… bonding thing - “ he stopped as if he had said something sacrilegious, a chill climbing up his spine and the thought of _danger danger_ causing him to freeze up. When he wasn’t scolded or corrected, he continued with a healthy amount of caution “- but everyone here goes through that and you wouldn’t have done it if you didn't think it was a good thing.” He believed that, _had_ to believe that ( _otherwise the emptiness would spread and devour the rest of him as if it hadn’t already taken so much_ ).

A’ma smiled sharply down to him and Aang thought she meant to be reassuring.

“All you’ve done is help me, and the monks… the monks they - “ _left me, gave me away like I was nothing_. He couldn’t say it, his throat closing up around the near suffocating pressure of his failed expectations. 

Her next words came after a moment of silence. “We… don’t claim to know our brothers or sisters of the temple, nor how well they follow their philosophies. You experienced something unfortunate and cruel at the hands of people who were supposed to care for you and love you.” A hand came up to cup his cheek and wipe away a stray tear - _and he was crying why was he crying._

The sheer tragedy that resonated in her voice merged and echoed his own pain. The ache of _missing_ something was dulled, while whatever was blocking his throat and flushing his cheeks took on a life of its own. _Anger_ was not an emotion Aang had been very familiar with but, more recently, had become increasingly overwhelming. 

“But I was better with them. Here, I keep messing up and I _hate it._ ” For a moment Aang wondered when things had gone so wrong. He’d been frustrated all day, sure, but this felt like it had come out of nowhere, welling up in him from some hidden reservoir that he’d either suppressed or been unable to access until recently. This wasn’t him, _couldn’t_ be him.

 _He just didn’t want to admit that he was capable of that kind of rage, of real_ **_hatred_ ** _._

Slowly, ever so slowly, he felt something growing and forcefully rooting, _anchoring,_ in his lungs. He was forced to breathe, to keep breathing. Shaky gasps of air passed his lips and the shaking in his shoulders soon became barely noticeable. The air bender reveled in the warmth circling throughout his body and soon became aware of tiny… threads of soothing energies: the feeling of soaking in the sun after a long day of rain, the first taste of a moonpeach after the harvest, and a mother’s embrace right after a nightmare.

Aang didn’t have a mother, never knew her, no matter that he called Sangmu ‘A’ma’. 

The emotions that came with the _knowing_ of where that small thread came from was devastating in a more subtle way. They were tiny needles that knew how to dig under the skin and stay there no matter how he tried to get rid of them. Soon, the other threads too became twisted in their own way, despite their kind intention. 

Scorching sun in the desert far away from home, fruit that he would never be able to share with his former friends and a mother that would have, should have, been someone who loved him unconditionally and would never have left him - 

_But she had left him like all the other mothers left their children in the air temples._

“I think that is enough for today.” 

It felt like being dunked into freezing water, the way the threads withdrew so quickly and he was left feeling so _hollow_. Aang practically threw himself the rest of the way into A’mas’ arms, curling into her to try and appear as small as possible. The dizziness that came with the whiplash had him shutting his eyes tightly to try and ward it off. 

And that wasn’t even the worse part.

It was _quiet_. The boy couldn’t stand the sudden silence in his head and tried to project, to mimic the comfort they had tried to offer him and turn it into a cry for reassurance. 

_He hadn’t meant to reject them, he was so so sorry._

Aang thought it mustn't have gotten through because all A’ma did was loosely wrap her arms around him delicately, raising one hand to cup the back of his neck. It felt distant and Aang didn’t like it at all, especially coming from the one who had allowed him to hide in her robes for months. 

Aang had never felt more alone or so unsteady. 

“Your training is progressing well, despite your hesitation. This is a rather advanced technique. I apologize if I mislead you into thinking it would be easy.” She carefully extracted herself from where he’d tried to burrow into her stomach.

Aang wanted to tell her to hug him, to not let him go _please,_ but he didn’t want to cause more of a fuss than he already had ( _he didn’t deserve a hug, they had tried and pulled back because he had pushed them away_ ). He forced himself to turn back to the depressing lesson that had become of his bending practice (it was easier to think about it even though it still hurt so _bad_ ). 

The acolyte sniffled, shaking his head as he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “No, _I’m_ sorry I got so upset. It’s just… I’m used to doing really well and - “ Aang paused for a moment before his shoulders fell in realization “- I’m not used to _failing_.” 

And that was the difficult part, wasn’t it? He was tiers above all the other students his age back at the temple but here, he was in fact _behind_ the other air benders his age. It wasn’t a good feeling and Aang didn’t know how to make it go away.

“Truthfully, it’s a good thing you’re learning this early on.” 

Aang looked up, a strangled noise of disbelief leaving him before he could stifle it.

“Your education over your lifetime will involve teachers and subjects that are wildly different from each other. It is unreasonable for anyone, even the _Avatar_ , to be good at everything.”

Oh! Aang… hadn’t thought of it like that. A red hue climbed up his neck and, gosh, when she put it like that he sounded like such an _idiot_. 

_And hit the rage that had taken over him down down down until he could barely feel it._

“I… that’s all good in theory, but I just - don’t get what I’m doing wrong _right now_ .” Aang looked away from her, horribly unbalanced. He wrapped his arms self consciously around himself ( _trying to comfort, trying to stay calm_ ). 

A’ma huffed and, for the first time since he had known her, he sensed the slightest bit of agitation. Aang carefully kept his body relaxed, doing his best to project _harmless not hurt curious sorry sorry_. 

“Principles. Ideals. Mindset. All of these things take time to integrate and, until then, we will focus on other techniques and forms.”

“Wait - ” Aang looked up at his mentor in shock, blinking as if it would change something“ - we’re skipping a tier?!” 

She looked amused and immediately crushed his hopes. “ _No_. We will not skip an essential part of your training.” She walked around him, looking towards the skyline where the sun was quickly falling to meet the hills. “You will have to relearn your basics if you ever hope to earn your mastery.” 

Aang’s face fell into a deeper state of shock and dismay. No no no they couldn’t do that, he couldn’t go back to the beginning! It was an advanced technique, she said so herself, so why - 

“Aang...” 

He snapped his head up to look at her with his big cloud storm eyes. Despite their eyes being the same color, they couldn’t have been more different in severity, because her eyes still reminded Aang of _daggers._

Aang’s own eyes narrowed as some part of him recognized that he found her _lacking_. 

_...In the same way that he was lacking_ . _They both had frayed edges around their souls, reaching and reaching to something or someone that couldn’t reach back._

“I’m not some _beginner_ \- “ he started, hands beseeching and not even trying to stop himself from sounding petulant. 

“Trust me when I say that this is for the best. Our way of bending is fundamentally different and it will help you to retrain in our most basic forms with the correct mentality.” 

Aang looked away wearily, tired and annoyed at himself more than anything. He pouted as A’mas’ attention was drawn back to the camp. The acolyte was vaguely able to sense a disturbance in the threads trailing from himself to the other members of the group. 

“I believe it is time to set up the defenses for the night. It’s time for you to join the others in the underground.”

Aang looked down at himself, pants stained and skin stiff with sweat now that it had cooled. “Can’t I get a bath?” 

“You’ll be given a bucket of water to wipe down with until later tonight. You know the rules.” 

Aang didn’t know why but there was a short period of time, starting from sunset, that none of the kids were allowed out and were forced underground. Some of them said they heard drums coming from above, but Aang had never heard a thing. 

_The whistling and violent wailing of the wind always blocked out any other noises._

Being led back to the camp was hectic and suddenly he was being led into helping with the careful placement of tools and food items back into their jars and into their respective tents. One of the others absently passed him a cup of cold tea that was quickly chugged despite knowing what was in it. 

Things started getting a bit fuzzy after that and he had to be led to where the underground bunker had been bent who knows how many years ago by another sect. 

_For a moment he thought he saw Gyatso on the edges of the sect’s boundaries, but he was turned away too quickly and by the time he was able to glance back there was no one there._

He was present enough to wipe himself down until he didn’t feel too disgusting, before putting on the upper half of his Gi. Aang looked down at the other piece of clothing in annoyance, longingly thinking back to the days where he didn’t have to worry about this nonsense. He hesitantly wrapped his shawl until it was once again loosely covering his head and the bottom portion of his face. He had some issues because he’d accidentally wrapped the long fabric to where it was pinned in the back when it was typically pinned in the front. 

One of the younger children tried to pull him into their small group as he struggled (it looked like they were playing a game, but Aang wasn’t familiar with it). They were quick to flinch away from him when the older Yun-Ji stepped to the side of him and flawlessly pinned and tucked the extra fabric away for him. Aang frowned at the reaction but wasn’t able to think of questioning it so soon after a dose. 

Exhausted, he curled up against the wall next to his friend and settled down to nap for a few hours. By then, most of the tea would have worn off, settling into a pleasant haze, and they would be allowed back above to listen to animated stories and dance to the beat of the drum and the sway of the tsungi-horn. 

Aang fell asleep to the familiar wailing of the wind. 

_He tried not to think about how it sounded like screaming._

**Author's Note:**

> You'll start noticing things are going on with Aang in this "chapter". There is an outlier and it's actually rather obvious, but you'll start seeing a lot more in the future from this point on. 
> 
> I was gonna talk about soulmates in this installment but I couldn't fit it into here so that'll probs be next. 
> 
> I probably should make this more apparent: Sangmu is *not* a normal portrayal of a windwalker. She is a Ge A'ma and they act in a specific way and have a role separate from the majority of the sect. It'll be explained more in the next installment.


End file.
